Inspiration borrowed from Eugene Peterson

Blogger's note: We took the Toothpick (6'1" in height ... weight between 125 and 130 ... and he never stops eating) to move in at college this past week. Wednesday evening's rehearsals were covered for me by others. This was the best I could do with the time crunch.

I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction recently. You may know Peterson as the source of the scripture paraphrase known as The Message. The first edition of this book came out in 1980. In 2000 he set out to revise it to bring it a little more up-to-date in light of the huge changes that took place in those two decades. He was surprised at how few things of substance he found it necessary to change.

Since I’m scrambling for all I’m worth to get a week’s worth of work done in two days before we take the Toothpick off to college, I hope you won’t think I’m lazy for just sharing with you a few quotes that I have found particularly insightful.

In worship, though we have come from different places and out of various conditions, we are demonstrably after the same things, saying the same things, doing the same things. With all our differing levels of intelligence and wealth, background and language, rivalries and resentments, still in worship we are gathered into a single whole. Outer quarrels and misunderstandings and differences pale into insignificance as the inner unity of what God builds into the act of worship is demonstrated. (p. 32)

I have put great emphasis on the fact that Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But I have never said that we worship because we feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshiped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. Feelings are important in many areas but completely unreliable in matters of faith. Paul Scherer is laconic: “The Bible wastes very little time on the way we feel.”(p. 54)

Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship – it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week. The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security. Our everyday needs are changed by the act of worship. We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence. (p. 56)

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Permit Me a Moment, Please

Today the Toothpick posted a facebook update: “1 week before I move!” His excitement awakens my trepidation. This time next week, we’ll be in a hotel room in Grantham, PA trying to get excited minds quieted enough to get a decent night’s sleep before move-in day at Messiah College on August 27. I’ve had that date memorized for months.

I collect quotes … some of them are posted on my “Quote Library” blog. Earlier this week, a friend who spent her summer in South Africa returned my journal from my 1999 South Africa mission trip to me. I didn’t fill the whole journal up, so I had used the back pages to record some quotes I found in a book at my parents’ house almost 10 years ago. One of those quotes kind of tugged at the dad in me, and is even more poignant now. At the risk of becoming mired in the goo of hyper-sentimentalism (trust me, I am generally well-balanced about these kinds of things), I share it with you:

WHAT IS A BOY?
A boy is a bank where you may deposit your most precious treasures – the hard-won wisdom, the dreams for a better world. A boy can guard and protect these, and perhaps invest them wisely and win a profit – one larger than you ever dreamed. A boy will inherit your world. All your work will be judged by him. Tomorrow he will take your place, run your country, your company, your town, your church. He deserves more of your attention NOW.

Next week is going to take us deeper into this strange territory for us. Though it’s a normal passage, annually travelled by parents everywhere, and already travelled by some of Toothpick’s classmates’ parents (note the proper placement of the apostrophes, people), we’ve never been here before. Toothpick’s peer circle will now include people we have never, and perhaps will never meet. We will no longer have the opportunity of daily conversation to keep us “in the know” about his experiences. Etc.

The past few weeks, kind people in town have been asking us the kinds of questions that kind people ask to parents about to send a kid to college. Among the things they ask is how we are handling it. So far we’re fine, but I have a feeling that I’m going to have the toughest time of the family. Bittersweet? Yeah, like that.

No real big point to today’s Musings, just a peek inside my heart … And that IS enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Would You Please Ask the Blessing?

The practice of “saying the blessing” before meals is one that has been around in Christian circles for time immemorial. The first blessing I learned as a child was the ever familiar: “God is great; God is good; let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we are fed. Thank you, God, for daily bread.” The words were rote memory, and up until just recently sounded a bit childish to my “grown-up” ears. They are simple words, but the truths they express are anything but simplistic. And that prayer may actually be closer to the ancient practices if the faith than the blessings we consider more mature.

I remember each of my grandfathers pronouncing the blessing at family gatherings. Granddaddy’s blessing always went like this: “Gracious Lord, pardon our sins and make us thankful for these and all Thy many blessings, for Christ’s sake. Amen.” It was short and to the point, but it sometimes worried me that God might actually answer the “make us thankful” part by allowing us to do without for long enough to gain a new appreciation for what we previously took for granted. Daddy Jim’s blessing was often hard for us to hear (he wasn’t talking to us, after all). Perhaps one of my sisters can remember his usual form, but I can’t right now. Dad’s blessing form varied over the years, but was most often some variation on, “Father, for this food and for all Thy many blessings, we give you thanks. Amen.” He often also used the equally familiar, “bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and us to Thy service,” in his blessing.

My friend Charles Roberts (a big Obama fan, but I claim him as friend anyway) posted a blog in early July that unpacked this practice and led me to think a little differently about what we do when we pray before a meal. Our Christian practice has its roots in the Jewish blessing before meals … but the interesting thing when you look at the Jewish form is that our Jewish forebears did not ask God’s blessing on the food, but rather saw the abundance of food as cause to bless God … or to proclaim God’s blessedness to each other may be more accurate. And they may have pronounced multiple blessings during the course of the meal.

There is another way of looking at what we do before meals that has its root in the Greek New Testament account of Christ in the upper room. What they did in the upper room was very Jewish, but it comes to our Western minds through Greece and Rome. The Greek translation of the Hebrew word baruch (blessing) is the root of our English word eulogy, which means to speak well of. The other important Greek word in that passage is eucharist, which means to give thanks (and which is why our Episcopal and Anglican brothers and sisters call it that). I remember being asked at a family gathering to “return thanks,” which meant to “ask the blessing.” That is not far from the ancient practice. Charles’s blog ends with the suggestion that maybe we should not “ask the blessing” but rather use the opportunity to bless God ... or to proclaim the blessedness of God to each other.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Meditation on Psalm 32:1-2

I whacked the stick boy (child #2, age 15) in the mouth this morning. Just so that you will understand, let me tell you how it happened. I have recently subscribed to a free, e-mail based on-line guitar tutorial. Even though I’ve been playing for 35 years, there’s always more to learn. I had a few minutes before I needed to leave for work, so I thought it would check it out.

The stick boy heard the sound coming from the computer and came over behind me to see what it was. Those who know the stick boy know that he can’t just come and look without doing something interactive. So he’s behind me, looking over my head (still pleased with his newly acquired stature and the fact that it won't be long before he's the tallest in the family) and he blows a puff of air at my head while he’s satisfying his curiosity about what’s on the computer. Not realizing that his face was still so close to my head, I quickly moved my hand up to smooth my hair back down and felt the damp smack of the back of my hand against his mouth. It’s a sickening feeling when you know you’ve done something to injure one of your kids … even when it was totally accidental. But there’s a deeper connection with us. We’re both trumpet players. A bruised lip means painful playing … and the stick boy is in the middle of band camp ... with a new band director ... who is also a trumpet player ... and who doesn't know stick boy's capabilities yet.

His hand went over his mouth immediately after the injury and he assured me that he was OK … but I found it a little hard to believe. After a moment or two standing there recovering from the shock, he sat back down on the sofa, hand still covering his mouth, while I finished shutting down the computer. The tears still hanging in his eyes – not many, mind you … he’s brave – and the few that had made their way down his cheeks onto his chest supported my doubt. I know I annoyed him with my repeated questions trying to make sure he was OK. There was an odd mix of selfish need and altruism in my questions. I needed to know more than just whether he was physically OK. I needed to know that he was OK with me. As of lunch today, I’m still not sure he’s there.

Have you ever been there? Has your need of forgiveness, or of assurance of that forgiveness, ever been so deep that your heart couldn’t rest until you had it? As I drove to work, the first couple of verses of Psalm 32 kept echoing in my mind: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.” (NIV) It’s hard to be around someone when you know there’s still stuff between you. I wonder if that’s why some of our people find it hard to come back to worship after … well, after stuff happens. It’s uncomfortable until we know the blessed assurance of His forgiveness, so we just stay away and wonder why God seems distant. We must understand that He is so ready to forgive … much more so than we are or than we can imagine anyone to be.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you